Diopside with Vesuvianite (ex Kurt Hefendehl Collection)

Item Description

Here we have a wonderful display specimen featuring unusually compressed, silvery colored, gemmy lustrous crystals of Diopside measuring up to 8 mm, associated with little sparkling green crystals of Vesuvianite and blades of "Chlorite" (likely Clinochlore) on matrix from the Bazhenovsk Asbestos Deposit in Russia. It is rare to find Diopside crystals with such a strange tabular crystal habit and an odd color to boot. Very good quality all around, no major damage that I can find, certainly one of the best Diopsides from this locality that we've ever had to offer. As a side note, the Bazhenovsk Deposit is quite comparable to the famous Jeffrey Mine in Quebec, Canada in terms of the fact that they produced a lot of mineral specimen are quite similar looking. From the collection of Kurt Hefendehl, a well-known German collector all over Europe with worldwide contacts to dealers and collectors. He started collecting seriously at the age of 14 and his great and varied worldwide collection reached over 6000 pieces. He was very active mineralogically until shortly before his passing in 2020 at the age of 82. Considering his collection had a large number of pieces, it still had an unusually high standard of quality from most worldwide localities. He particularly specialized in all classics as well as minerals of the Black Forest, where he spent much time collecting. His Black Forest and German subcollections went to his good friend Wolfgang Wendel. We at The Arkenstone have the privilege of offering the remainder of this great worldwide collection over the next two to three years through our various platforms.